"A woman lead player?" Liende's eyebrows arched.

"A woman regent?" Anna asked softly in return.

Liende smiled faintly.

"It is not just a favor," Anna added. "I will pay you for finding and organizing the Regent's Players."

"Coin. . . and kindness. Neither can I afford to turn down, lady."

"Two silvers a week to start. Three a week, and two golds bonus, if you can gather enough players for two groups." Anna paused. "And you don't play for battles. What I had in mind is several groups of players, if we can find or train enough. A group that will learn and perform the songs for building, another group for battle songs, perhaps a third for other functions."

"I know much about building songs," Liende said. "Could I not lead such a group?"

"As long as you're not close to battles."

"Lady ... the others would think ill-"

"It's not kindness, or favoritism." Anna shook her head. "I made a mistake with Daffyd, a terrible mistake. I should not have brought him with me to the battle with the Evult. I can teach singing, in time. I cannot teach players. I cannot make instruments, If anything happens to my lutar... who would replace it?"

Liende smiled. "A strange sorceress you are. You hazard yourself, but would save others less valuable.

Yet... I will not protest. While Kinor is near grown. Alseta is but twelve and young for her years."

"I did not know. They are welcome here, and you will have quarters large enough. Alseta and Kinor could join those being schooled."

"To me, lady, that be worth as much as the coins."

"Then you accept?"

"How could I refuse?" Liende smiled. "Palian will join me, and I trust Kaseth will. Jaegel will not. He could not play under a woman." She shrugged. "You will see. I be no bargain."

"I can help you with conducting," Anna said. "I already have many of the songs, both my own and some from Lord Brill. I can guide you, but I can't be a sorceress and a lead player at the same time."

"You have led players before?"

"I've studied leading players, and I have led large groups of singers," Anna admitted. Her conducting cla.s.ses were far behind her, but she doubted many in Liedwahr had had even that much training. She paused. "Can you read Lord Brill's notations?"

"No. He kept those to himself. Most sorcerers do, I understand."

Anna understood, but it was just something else to make her plans-and life-a little harder "Oh," She shook her head. "There's one violino player I've found. He's barely adequate, but we don't seem to have much choice. His name is Delvor."

"I do not know of him, but I will hear him."

Anna reached for her belt wallet and extended a gold. "This is to help get you and your family here.

Dythya is the accounts mistress, and she'll pay you and your players."

"Dythya I know."

Of course, Anna thought. After the battle of the Sand Pa.s.s, Liende had found refuge at Elhi. Lord Jecks'

holding.

Anna took out the quill pen, and carefully, most carefully, wrote out a short note to Dythya, explaining Liende' a commission, and pay, and that she would need two to three rooms in the players' quarters.

Both the ink and the brown paper ensured that the note would take time to dry. While it did. Anna pointed to the paper and added, "This note-please give it to Dythya- it explains that you are the chief player and requests that she give you all possible a.s.sistance." Anna paused. "How soon can you start?"

"Why . . now, lady. Alseta and Kinor can travel here as they can from Elhi. Lord Jecks often sends a few arms-men and messengers."

Anna nodded. "Then get settled, and talk to Delvor and check his playing. Later this afternoon"-Anna fumbled as she tried to convert hours to local time- "around the eighth gla.s.s, please come back with your horn, and we'll go over several of the spellsongs we'll be using. One or two you may know, but I want you to be familiar with the main ones." Anna took a sip from the goblet, then continued. "Can you send for Palian and any others? If you need a scribe, see if Dythya can help."

Liende bowed her head slightly. "You do not lag, my lady."

"We'd better not." Anna said. "We have to be ready." Exactly what she was readying Defalk for, was another question, but her intuition told her that it was necessary, and whenever she'd doubted that intuition, she'd found trouble and more trouble.

Anna waved the short note a last time in the air, and seeing that the ink had finally dried, stood and extended the paper to Liende. "Until the eighth gla.s.s."

"Thank you, Lady Anna."

Anna paused, then said, "Liende. I am not being short with you. I am not displeased. I am gratified that you are here. I am asking you to pardon me if I seem short, or if I do not spend more time being courteous and gracious. In time, I hope I will not feel so rushed. Now there is much to do, and I know so little." And I'm still tired, d.a.m.ned tired A smile played across the thin lips of the player. "Most rulers would not explain, but I thank you. Alseta will also be grateful." She bowed again, then slipped out.

Anna still felt embarra.s.sed by the situation, but what else could she do?

She had yet to deal with a reflecting pool-and where to put it. The small room across the corridor? No one had been living there since the Neserean forces had left, and it was probably better not to guest strangers too close to her quarters.

Still, that would have to wait, since it would take sorcery, and she dared not try anything significant for a few days yet.

Why was everything so f.u.c.king difficult? She'd replaced one lousy bridge, and she'd been a basket case for over a week. Why? Why had the bridge been so hard? Had it been because she'd done Darksong with Wendella just before?

Anna just sat at the worktable, slowly chewing through a hard cracker, knowing she was stalling, almost not caring. She finished the cracker, then looked at the papers on the corner of the table.

Her nails clicked together, and she looked down; surprised that her old nervous habit had resurfaced.

Were things getting that bad?

11.

DUMARIA, DUMAR.

The broad-shouldered man in the gold-trimmed red tunic lifts the dagger, momentarily balancing it on his forefinger. "It's not right," he murmurs to himself before half turning to the window and the gray downpour outside. "A gold, and it's not balanced right."

The man in the gray cloak waits on the hard wooden chair.

The red-clad man leaves the window and sets the knife on the dark wooden writing table, beside the flickering oil lamp. He picks up the scroll once more and studies the words before setting it on the desk and letting it rewind itself. "And why will your master not come himself, the honorable soul that he is?"

"The b.i.t.c.h sorceress knows his likeness, Lord Ehara." The man in gray shifts his weight on the bad chair.

"-and she holds his consort and heir. I know. Too bad that he cannot put his consort aside and take another. Heirs are easy enough to come by. The harmonies know, I've got enough of them." Ehara's ba.s.s laugh booms off the walls of the small study. "Your master writes that the lords in the south of Defalk would willingly swear to me. Yet he does not say why this should be so. Perhaps you could explain that, Master Slevn." Ehara's voice drops into an almost silky ba.s.s as dark as his beard and hair.

"Not a one of the southern lords of Defalk have much love of the b.i.t.c.h, save perhaps Geansor, and he's a cripple who can't live forever."

"1 had heard Birfels supported her."

"For lack of a better alternative, Lord Ehara. He has removed his older son from Falcor, you may have heard. His younger remains in Abenfel. Only his daughter is hostage to the sorceress,"

"You say that Birfels is hostile to the sorceress. Why, pray tell, if he did remove his sons, would he leave his daughter?" Ehara again turns his back to Slevn.

"She must find a consort, I would imagine," Slevn says slowly. "None of Birfels' neighboring lords have Sons of an age. I do know that Birfels told the sorceress that he had no love of the sorceress's efforts to educate the daughters of lords at Falcor. Nor of allowing the widowed ladies to hold their dead lords'

lands. I understand you have no love of such thoughts, either."

"What of Lord Gylaron?" asks Ehara abruptly.

"Gylaron has been brooked too often by Lord Geansor, and by those in Falcor who side with the cripple in order to keep the south weak and divided:' A faint sheen of perspiration coats Slevn' s forehead.

"Oh. . . so your lord would be the overlord of the south under me, relying on my armsmen and their blades and blood? Why did he not write me such a proposal?"

"He did not say such, my lord Ehara."

"Yet he thinks such, or you would not have voiced it." Ehara laughs again. "Tell your master that I ask much of my overlords. More, I wager, than he would dream or wish." Another laugh follows. "What of Lord Arkad? His lands are the key to the south of Defalk."

"Lord Arkad is ailing. His seneschal runs his lands. They are rich lands, perhaps the richest in Defalk."

Slevn blots his forehead with the back of his hand when Ehara half turns toward the window and the continuing rain. "And he has no heirs, not ones close enough to worry about."

"Your master would tempt me, then? Ha! Defalk once was rich, and may be again. Now it is but a ruin of a land, governed by a madwoman for an underage boy and lords who do not know that the world must change." Ehara touches his black beard, and the blue eyes flash for a moment, although his voice drops into an even tone as he finishes. "It must change before the ships of Sturinn flood our coasts. One way or another, we cannot ignore the Maitre of Sturinn."

"Now is the time to take Defalk, then, and you can reap the riches of its rebirth," suggested Slevn.

"Poetry now? 'Riches of its rebirth'? Your master is known for his turn of phrase. Did he suggest you use that phrase?"

"No, Lard Ehara."

"You coined it? Then, coin no more phrases in the hearing of Lord Dencer. He might not take it well."

Ehara glances from the table to Slevn. "1 must think about what you have suggested. Tell your lord I am strongly considering his proposal and I will inform him shortly after your return to Stromwer. You may go." The lord pauses. "Who knows of this?"

"Only my lord and you, sire."

"That is for the best." Ehara nods, then extends his hand, which bears both a golden coin and a small sealed scroll. 'These may speed your pa.s.sage."

"Thank you. Lord Ehara."

Ehara waits until Slevn has left the study before he beckons to the officer waiting outside.

When the door shuts again, the Lord of Dumar turns to the lancer in the red uniform of Dumar. "The man in gray will be set upon by brigands or thieves when he reaches the Sudbergs-or if he talks to anyone who seems of import. Then the thieves will slay them both. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sire."

The red-clad lancer departs, and Lord Ehara beholds the rain and clouds once more.

12.

Anna pushed away the plate that contained but one us sc.r.a.p of meat and a crust of bread. She felt totally gorged, and yet she knew she'd be ravenous in another few hours-another few gla.s.ses, she mentally corrected herself, still trying to adjust to Erdean terms. Gla.s.ses instead of hours, deks instead of miles, except a dek was much closer to a kilometer.

Across the cleared s.p.a.ce of the receiving-room worktable, Jecks took a sip of wine from his goblet, then spoke. "Were I to eat half what you do, Lady Anna, in a few weeks they could stuff me and serve me to all Elhi, and there would be leavings for the dogs."

Hanfor, seated beside Jecks, finished a last sc.r.a.p of cheese, and nodded in agreement with the older man.

"If I ate half what I'm eating, I'd die of starvation in two weeks," Anna said dryly.

"I know. Your cheeks are still too thin."

"I'm still paying for rebuilding that bridge, but it's a good thing I did. The Fal is rising. No one would be able to ford it now, and probably not for the rest of the year, if ever."

Jecks looked to the window and the gray clouds outside, then back to the table. His eyes did not quite meet hers when he spoke. "Lady Anna, much as you wish to help all, you cannot. You did rebuild the bridge, and it has taken half a season for you to recover. As you told the fosterlings, not even the most powerful sorceress in Liedwahr can do everything that needs to be done. Not even you can do all that needs must be done in Defalk or even in Falcor itself."

Then who will? Anna wanted to ask, even as she answered, "That's the problem."

"All rulers have that difficulty, lady." Jecks laughed, a short but warm sound. "That is why I grow increasingly glad that I am not a regent or a ruler."

"Careful, I might just resign in your favor. After all, you are the grandsire of the heir."

"No one would let you. They trust you more than they do me. They will let you kill yourself on their thoughtless behalf, but that is another kind of sheep."

That's always the way people treat the willing horse ... or regent-flog her to death with overwork.

'We're nearing spring, and I'm even more worried about the liedgeld, and especially about this lord Arkad." Anna decided to change the subject slightly. "All the others have either made an effort or faced extraordinary difficulties." She laughed. "The difficulties may or may not be real, but a prudent ruler should move cautiously in those cases, I think." She turned to the handsome Jecks. "What do you think?"

"I doubt both Lord Arkad and Lord Gylaron of Lerona," Jecks said slowly. "and Lord Dencer, as you know. The troubles of the others seem real enough, and all have made some effort except for Lord Via.s.sa's heirs." A wry smile crossed his face. "A regent should avoid conflicts between heirs unless you mean to kill all but one."

Anna winced. "I'm not up for that." Yet. 'Gylaron's effectively Dencer's northern neighbor, isn't he? I don't care much for that. There seems to be a disproportionate number of southern lords who are reluctant to pay."

"I had noted that before."

"Arkad is the closest. Perhaps we should visit him."